Motorcycling and off-roading - a brief discussion on the comprehensive strength of long-distance driving and control skills in motorcycle traveling (Part 1)

Nowadays, the proportion of motorcycle tour groups in the motorcycle fandom is increasing. Countless motorcycle tour enthusiasts are walking on the road, enjoying the scenery and enjoying the joy of travel. However, not every trip can bring happiness. The road of motorcycle travel is not only full of scenery, but also hidden dangers. The root cause of dangers often comes from the riders themselves...

This issue’s special In planning, we will take into account the dangers on the motorcycle road and combine the riders' own conditions to launch countermeasures to avoid injuries to the greatest extent. Our focus is to increase your adaptability and resilience to harsh road surfaces and improve your overall strength in long-distance driving.

Motorcycle tours and "barrels"

How much water a barrel can hold depends on the shortest piece of wood. This famous barrel theory also applies to motorcycle tours. Whether you can complete a motorcycle tour safely depends on your technical shortcomings. Many motorcycle enthusiasts who have had accidents have suffered "weak spots" on bad road conditions. Accidents on good roads are mostly due to carelessness or sudden injury from the other party, and have little to do with the quality of the riding skills. For example, many years ago, a famous motorcycle traveler was traveling west when a construction zone with no obvious and effective warning suddenly appeared on the flat road, resulting in a car crash and death. In this case, no matter how good the technology is, it is in vain. The greatest safety guarantee is to go slower and leave enough response time for emergencies. The so-called "response" is just braking and slowing down.

Driving on a flat road, driving at a slightly lower safe speed than is achievable, and slowing down in advance and being prepared to brake when encountering intersections with poor visibility can maximize safety. However, emergencies on complex road conditions are often caught off guard. The only remedy at that time is instinctive reaction. The accumulation of daily skills will determine whether your reaction is correct. At the end of May 2006, the author (accompanied by an old friend) drove into Tibet for the first time. When passing a Tibetan village in Mangkang, he was chased to the ground by a ferocious Tibetan dog. . At that time, when I was escaping from the village, I encountered a high hill piled with earth and rocks by local villagers to slow down the passing vehicles. I could not avoid it at all, so I had to rush up. My Suzuki retro car, which was full of luggage, was on two wheels. It flew out... Of course, the result was a near miss. The motorcycle flew several meters in the air and landed smoothly. It only made me break out in a cold sweat.

After analyzing the accident, the reason why it was unscathed was due to the correct handling method at the time - affected by the angle of the ridge, the front wheel of the motorcycle was high and the rear wheel was low when it was in the air. , I stood up after taking off and leaned my upper body forward as much as possible to control the center of gravity of the car, otherwise I would definitely fall. The reason that enabled me to take the correct measures was my previous off-road vehicle driving experience on forest roads, mountains and fields. The accumulation of time on the off-road field allowed me to subconsciously make the correct reaction in critical situations. The "venue" mentioned here is the off-road vehicle competition venue. Although I have never participated in an off-road vehicle track race, I was the secretary-general of an off-road vehicle club from 2003 to 2005. Taking advantage of the convenience of vehicles and venues, I went to the venue to practice driving in my free time and encountered technical skills. As for the bottleneck, I asked the experts of this club... Although I broke my collarbone due to an operational error while jumping over a large platform, I was exposed to all the basic movements of cross-country competition, and I was able to develop and improve them during the long-term leisure travel on forest roads and mountains.

That time when I went to Tibet, my old friend who was traveling with me suffered a lot - two tires were punctured, two shelves were broken, and the car fell down once. That crash was very dangerous. At that time, I was lagging behind while taking pictures, and when I was chasing him, I almost hit him in a sharp bend, who was pinned under the car and couldn't move. It was a bad road with rocks hidden in the floating soil. When turning a corner, my old friend ran over the gravel and slipped and fell to the ground. He happened to fall on the outer super height that sloped inward. Without external assistance, there was no way he could have done it. Get up. Fortunately, I arrived shortly after I fell. It would have been dangerous if a large truck passed by.

This old friend’s distress was due to his lack of experience in driving on non-paved roads, especially on bad road conditions. Along the way, the two of us have already discovered his problems in this regard, so that he can He was running freely in front, and I was walking and following him behind, and he was also walking very carefully. However, it is not enough to be careful in bad road conditions. If you ride slowly, you may crash and cause problems.

In short, for riders who have lived in cities and plains areas with developed road networks for a long time, the lack of driving control skills on complex road sections is the biggest shortcoming for many people on the motorcycle journey, leading to a large number of accidents and bringing trips and even lives to an abrupt end. ...

Long-distance motorcycle travel is no better than commuting to your doorstep. You have to face unknown road conditions. I remember the first time I ran a motorcycle tour of more than 1,000 kilometers, in Magongdian, Sihong County, I couldn't help but lamented at the bad road in front of me that looked like it had been bombed: "I have never seen such a bad road..." In Yi On the several kilometers of water-filled road on the river, looking at the rapid water in front of the wheel, it really makes the hair on the hair stand on end and cold sweat...

If you don't go out, you don't know that there are so many amazing things in the world. The beautiful scenery; if you don’t go out, you won’t know that there are such difficult roads in the world. This is one of the deepest insights I have gained over the years of motorcycle riding. Now, having been to Tibet three times, I feel that the road to Tibet is getting better and better. Many areas in other provinces are more difficult to travel than the conventional routes to Tibet. For example, in Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and other places, the narrow winding roads deep in the mountains are prone to collapse when rain occurs. Driving on the edge of muddy and steep cliffs is a great test for driving skills.

I won’t talk about the distance, but I will just talk about my motorcycle travel experience in the past two years. In the late summer of 2016, while traveling by motorcycle in southeastern Guizhou, I encountered a dozens-meter-long mountaintop landslide on the mountain trail from Liping County to Jianhe County. Below the broken muddy roadbed less than one meter wide was a cliff dozens of meters deep. Here, local mountain bikers get off their bikes and push the pedal, but my bike is too wide with my luggage and there is no place to stand when I push the bike. I had to go back more than 100 kilometers on a very dangerous mountain road with poor road conditions. I was really unwilling to do so, so I took the risk and went through it... This spring, I went to Tibet with the Yamaha team and encountered landslides and gravel again on the Bingchacha line. The covered road surface forms a raised stone curb with an extremely uneven surface. On the lower left is the raging Nu River under the cliff. At that time, under the arrangement of the team leader, the team members worked together to lift the car through the landslide area, but I thought I could ride over it and didn't want to trouble my teammates, so I turned the accelerator and rushed through the rubble. The surprised expression of Du Xiaohua, the team’s logistics supporter, is still imprinted in my mind when I passed. Apparently he thought I was too risky and was too embarrassed to tell me in front of everyone...

Is it really a risk? ? In the eyes of people who have never been exposed to cross-country sports, the behavior I mentioned above on the cliff section in southeastern Guizhou and the Bingchacha landslide section is indeed risky. However, I have long passed the age of impulsiveness. It seems risky, but in fact everything is there. Under control. Reckless advancement without knowing one's own strength is a risk, and many riders who fail on the motorcycle road come from this. Among acquaintances who have had accidents in recent years, I found that many people's highway (paved road) driving skills are still not low, and their cornering speed makes me look up to them. Through comparison, I also found that among motorcycle enthusiasts, the probability of accidents among off-road vehicle enthusiasts is significantly lower than that of road racing enthusiasts. I remember once going to Funiu Mountain with a friend who had participated in track training for a company and many road races. When we encountered a broken road, he who was originally far ahead would fall far behind me and eat dust. In Pingdingshan on National Highway 311, he couldn't stand it anymore and wanted to speed up and overtake me. Before he could reach me, he suddenly slipped into a mud pit...

In short, long-distance motorcycle tours will encounter all kinds of bad things. Road conditions - bumpy and broken roads in mining areas, gravel roads around mines in the mountains, renovated roads in plain areas where the road surface has been completely destroyed, frightening unpaved narrow cliff sections in deep mountains, flood-damaged roads, rainy season Muddy dirt roads... Even if you are a master of the moto GP track, you can only slow down when encountering the above road conditions. However, even if you have only run a few cross-country track races or rallies, you will be able to run like a fish in water here. Writing this, I suddenly remembered a passage from Shanghai’s old motorcycle tour Lao Ma when I was running the “In a Foreign Country” column in the last issue of the magazine: It is very necessary to master some basic off-road knowledge in motorcycle tours. It is more important than how to fully inflate the tires. More... What Lao Ma calls "off-road common sense" is actually off-road vehicle control skills, and this is the "weak spot" of many motorcycle enthusiasts.

To be continued...